


Colour Theory

by horse



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Animal Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 05:56:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9586796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horse/pseuds/horse
Summary: “Who are you?”“God.”“Presumptuous to think I believe in just one, or any.”“Not when you were trying to meet him so earnestly, it isn’t. Like a beautiful, stupid dove.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> um,

Seldom does the rain come when poignant, poetry be damned.

Oftentimes, it happens when warring bodies must traipse entire, miserable lands, meaning to make haste and cover tracks. Instead, Lord Leo’s army is mired in the muddy remnants of midnight to midmorning storm. Niles laments this fact deeply as he wades in shallow murk, thinking it best to return to his Lord, rather than hazard a scout in such… unpleasant conditions.

The forest is made of several colours, he knows that, logically - but today everything is the same grey, objects bleeding together as if he were traversing a wet Hoshidan painting. No bird has the ill sense to fly when the air is this heavy, when the breeze can barely move and whistle through pine needles. He rubs his shoulder, trying to drift forward without rousing whatever life there was left to stir in this affected place. 

And then, behind a thick tree, a brazen display of colour. White. Cerulean. Crimson.

It is a beast, Niles has no doubts for a moment - laboured breathing, a flutter. Wings, he surmises, catching feathers when he squints. The familiar rise and fall of an equine back. A pegasus. The next few seconds are like the anxious, odious notes of a quartet (something Niles had been sorely ignorant to before his impromptu invocation as bodyguard, however ill-advised that had been), shrill and trembling in still air as he guides his leather boots with practised silence through the elements. Steady. Rhythm. His movement blends into the natural quiet - gentle shifts of water, a mimic of flow, of fauna. His focus is untested, the wolf in him fixed to a point, hungry. Trees too cramped, a flock would never fit, let alone perch. Forests more like swamps were no home to a pegasus. Fallen. Hurt? Niles risks a few more footsteps before he sees the man.

Asleep on the belly of the suffering animal is a person, a soldier. Everything evidences a nasty fall. Broken branches shelter their bloody, battered bodies like an unfortunate shield - too late, at least for the mount. The rider is still breathing. Niles waits.

Moments drag on, moments that allow Niles the ease to emerge from the shadows. This rider is alone, and this is no trap, he’s comfortably certain. The stink of men is lost here - long gone, if it had ever existed, besides the two of them.

Niles approaches, cautious, but the pegasus is too far away in it’s suffering to do much but wait for some kind of end. Even when he presses a hand to it’s shivering thigh, it barely moves it’s head to investigate. Flies are attuned to death. Niles watches them dance in the air, keeping time, hovering by flared nostrils and slackened ears. It is a sorry sight, even for someone as destitute of sympathy as a slum-grown criminal.

Unfortunately, the soldier is a mural of all things beautiful to such a sorry man as he - Red hair that flows like rich wine as if it is underwater, splayed in a heavenly design, the mathematics of which most assuredly conclude in perfection. Skin that glows yet, somehow, in the midst of all this damage and disarray. Niles catches himself hunched over, watching, waiting, disregarding years of conditioning in the school of distrust and defense. His fingers itch to move the strands. He forgets the pegasus. 

Bloodied fingers, once clutching the flank of his mount, now curl gently there, useless for now. Niles knows that even when this man comes back to consciousness he will be mostly useless. So pretty, he thinks, not knowing whether that prettiness was rooted in ruin or matter of fact.

\---

Rain again. Clouds collide and make sounds like shattering stone and tumbling marble overhead. Speaking, perhaps.

Niles slips into the infirmary tent, knowing he won’t be alone. Cold amusement trickles into Lady Camilla’s expression, arms cross as she turns from the bedside. Her eyes are empty, only kind when he satisfies Lord Leo, as if that is his only merit. So be it. Niles has no interest in navigating the treacherous, draconian edges of this woman more than necessary. She comes in Leo’s stead, bad at dealing with the emotional cost of battle as he is. She seems most at peace during times like this, where she can ruminate on the effects of negotiated strategies… of a well fought scuffle, or a missed opportunity. That, at least, he can relate to, and respect.

The body he is interested in lays two beds beyond the Lady, and he drifts there, hands clasped behind his back as if he were at a museum of paintings and not injuries.

The man is Tsubaki, and he is a retainer, just like him. Interesting, Niles reflects, that his easiest prey would be the type of soldier he’d (like it or not) saved. Sky Knights, in all their grace, were squawking quail when they fell into his line of sight. Graceless. Hopeless. Dead in the air. 

He’s chewing his thumb nail, watching red lashes flutter.

\---

Tsubaki is awake two days after his unwilling rescue. He is silent and contemptuous, and will only talk to Lady Elise. Niles tries more than once to make use of that, only to hit a wall of high pitched insults, and pouty recitations of vows, of posterity. He can’t help but give a throaty chuckle as she reprimands him for trying to make her into a heartless snitch. Don’t you use me - she warns him - don’t think I’ll tell you anything he won’t tell you!

In times of war, things like this are precious, even Niles knows.

Tsubaki holds little threat. No one is coming to save him, not when he is surrounded by royals and the highest grade arms in Nohr. His means of travel is one with the soft earth of that ancient wood, fluttering peacefully beneath a soft blanket of wet leaves. His weapon is in pieces, the longest half still caught between pine needles. Otherwise, the benevolent little Lady Elise would be ushered away, leaving a blacker heart to strike conversation.

Niles clutches the fabric over his black heart, and leans against cold bark.

\---

“Who are you?”

“God.”

“Presumptious to think I believe in just one, or any.”

“Not when you were trying to meet him so earnestly, it isn’t. Like a beautiful, stupid dove.”

Quiet.

“Don’t stop now, we were getting along so well.”

“Were we?”

“I don’t call just anyone beautiful before I call them stupid.”

Niles rests his chin in a hand, candlelight casting what might be unpleasant shadows on his face. Not that it matters. Tsubaki doesn’t look at him directly, not often. Most of the time, his dark gaze is fixed above them. Niles waxes poetic, sees pictures of Tsubaki in the sky, deep red against turquoise.

Tsubaki glances at him, looks tired, but in the way of an irritated comrade, and not a prisoner. He finally speaks.

“I don’t want to die.” It’s a whisper, and Niles is about to respond, but Tsubaki continues. “But I’ll never join you. And I’ll never let my friends be baited-”

“Assuming that’s your choice?” Niles licks his lips. “Do mice barter with cats, these days?”

“I can tell you’re sadistic enough to enjoy gutting me. So just do it.”

Something burns under Niles’ skin, and in Tsubaki’s irises, orange in the light. There’s something wild in Tsubaki’s balanced, sure tone of voice. Demon claws scratching pristine wooden panels of a shōji.

“Tell me more about myself.” Niles murmurs. He tries to grin, but it won’t work. His face doesn’t listen. Tsubaki doesn’t say anything else, and turns his head to face the back of the tent. Disappointed.

Niles remembers himself here, kneeling before a blonde boy three-fourths his height, clean blade in his periphery. He too, had asked for death. Welcomed it. The memory snaked in his abdomen, twisted, lurched. He had no comrades, no desire to continue his wretched journey, marred by trouble, handed to him as a child. No one to protect, no one to protect him. 

By the candlelight, waning, leaving more of him in the safety of shadow, he wants to sleep, comforted by the orange, the red, the white. That warmth. But cold night is calling, just as loud as the comfortable labyrinth of his psyche. It pulls him like string. He must follow.

\---

Tsubaki sits up, and he talks. Niles has never seen him smile, but there is the grating notion that the prisoner must. In his privacy, in the knowledge that no one will mistake his humanity for weakness, Tsubaki must.

Soon he is in chains. He is not the only captive. Niles thinks he might be the most permanent, until there is talk of what to do with him. If not for Lord Kamui, the rest of the Nohrian siblings (bar Elise) would have cut Tsubaki down in the face of his stubborn refusal to cooperate.

Niles comes to him when they are mostly alone, before scouting or afterwards - dusk or twilight. He must harness the shine of the setting sun, of the moon, must dance in the cloak of night before the sun throws it away from him, and then he is free to pick and prod at Tsubaki’s machinations. And they are deliciously complex.

Tsubaki is not a creature of stupidity, despite Niles’ loving nicknames. He was lovingly crafted, svelte but in the sturdiest way, with a thickness that makes him reliable and real. The delicate quality of his person is more an effect of his personality, of the way he carries himself: his posture, the tilt of his head with question, the deliberate movements his body makes, programmed and precise. Every facet is a delicacy, and Niles must come to terms with feeling satisfied and deprived at the same time.

Every outreached hand is parried by the staff of Tsubaki’s resistance, steady in accomplished hands. It makes Niles bitter, in a defeated way. It makes him think. An ounce of force will split this as easily as a dead bough.

\---

In the span of a month, everything changes. Two sides converge to meet one evil, and suddenly, Hoshido and Nohr no longer exist in baseless, confused opposition.

The day of Tsubaki’s release, for Niles, comes directly after the day he was found. The days between are scattered like bits of paper between two bookends. He feels like nothing has happened, and yet somehow, like he is living a completely different life.

He lurks behind the party. There is discussion of a feast between houses. The day blends into itself, spits out images of Tsubaki at different angles, in different stages of relief, crying as a girl Elise’s age leads him away. Niles tries to bite back the jealousy. Seeing Tsubaki raw was never his priviledge, and though he knows it’s wrong, he can’t help the reaction.

\---

There is a forest somewhere in the wilds. More of a swamp, really. Tsubaki likes to go there when he can, even though the sight of that grey-green canopy makes him almost ill. When it rains, the ground slides away, lazy to hold itself against the force of the sky, and the water that collects is an ugly pool which cannot mirror. It’s relaxing, not being able to examine everything to a fault - in the place that is always out of focus. Too wet. Too grey. Everything bleeding into everything else, like a wet Nohrian painting.

He leaves white lilies by a stone, under a thick pine tree. One side of it is healing; these things take time, he supposes. His new mount stands closeby, calm in the daylight.

He looks up.

“I haven’t known any God to be so alarmingly bad at concealing themself.”

Niles jerks, shocked at beign recognised. 

Sensible, Niles thought, that it would be unexpected to see the Sky Knight here ever again. The damp wood served him as a place of solitude and self-loathing, wallowing in both the murk of the water and his heart, searching for some way to reconcile with himself. And he thought he’d have forever and a day to do that. He began to notice white flowers in a makeshift bouquet, which marked, he realised, the spot he had found that source of conflict, some months ago. Tsubaki had come back. Had returned of his own will.

“What are you doing here?” He’s surprised by the honesty of his voice, detailing far more emotion to Tsubaki than ever agreeable. Tsubaki swallows, looks down.

“Paying respects. Something you must not be accustomed to.”

“Don’t assume.” Niles mutters, hitting the ground like a cat. He nudges a lily with his boot, earning a hard look from Tsubaki. Fair enough. He retreats.

They stand in silence for some time, not knowing how to act around each other without the presence of protocol.

“‘Why didn’t you kill me?’ That’s your line. I’ll wait.” Niles says playfully, pretending to search the skies. He hears his company scoff beside him, and catches the last legs of a smirk before he looks away again, not wanting to get caught.

“I know the answer, why bother?”

“Posterity.”

“Mine, or your own?”

“My my! So outrageously flir-”

Tsubaki’s lips are cold at first, warmed by use. The gesture is downplayed - a simple tilt of his torso, a movement that continues as the kiss does, so that Tsubaki moves to face him fluidly. His hands remain at his sides, fingers curled; Niles catches them in his periphery when the man moves away, ever so slightly, to look up.

Niles is stopped dead in his tracks, as ruffled as the indigo ends of his capelet. He seems at such a loss that Tsubaki breaks his amusement to study the result of his bravery, floating in the quiet around and between them.

“Niles?”

This makes the blue eye blink. Focus. Hands, darkened skin and callouses, glide up the fabric at Tsubaki’s back. That steadies him, calms him. They drift up his neck, pull his head in. Niles is not much taller, which means this guides their cheeks to brush, and Tsubaki feels the band of that eyepatch on his skin. He sighs through his nose.

“Tsubaki.” Like a revelation. He will unpack it later, Tsubaki decides, turning into Niles’ neck, closing his eyes, trying not to cry. There is no sadness, no anger. But something chokes him regardless, makes his head hurt in a bearable way. Tsubaki hears a heart beating fast, but it slows after a short while.

“Hey.”

Niles stirs, drawing his head back, and Tsubaki gives him a meaningful look.

“Since we’re here.” Crimson flickers to meet cerulean. “You owe me.”

He is glad to see the change in that face… which can be infuriatingly mysterious. Dangerous, he knows, but Tsubaki is drawn to it, to the unknown. To the fear of it, maybe. 

“Owe you?” He hears Niles prod, voice low, genuinely curious.

Tsubaki unties his hair, letting it fall. His hands cup the jaw of his ex-captor, fingers pulling to adjust it as if Niles were a doll, so that he can mouth his soft words into a waiting ear. “Isn’t it unfair? You’ve seen me so vulnerable, but I...” He turns the strong jaw back, slowly, fingering the strap of Nile’s eyepatch. “Want to see your imperfections, too. Fair’s fair.”

It turns out to be an offer Niles can’t refuse.

\---

Rain is seldom poignant. But golden sunshine, Niles finds, as it travels the strands of red hair, rippling over a bare shoulder, does every poem infinite justice.


End file.
